"Husband, excuse me. You must take a look at this fruit."
Early in the morning, Lucas was scrubbing the back of Betty, who had a habit of getting up and taking a bath.
The bathroom was full of water vapor, and hot water poured down from the shower head, hitting Betty's back, breaking into countless tiny water droplets, and sliding down along the arc of her waist.
There was a gentle knock on the bedroom door. Sensing the breath outside, he said please come in.
Stussy stepped in with a serious expression. He closed the door and the door tongue clicked into the lock slot.
She held a Devil Fruit between her fingers, and the stem was shaped like a clockwork.
Lucas's pupils suddenly shrank.
Paramecia·Hobby-Hobby Fruit.
He recognized the origin of this fruit. It was a Devil Fruit with certain strategic significance.
The original time and space was eaten by Sugar, which provided a lot of help for the Donquixote Family to rule Dressrosa.
Betty, who was simply wrapped in a bath towel, came over and looked at the fruit curiously.
Water droplets dripped from the ends of her hair, hitting the peel and sliding away from the oily skin.
"Is there something wrong with this Devil Fruit? Why are you both looking so wrong?"
Lucas explained Hobby-Hobby Fruit's ability to her.
"Hey, turning people into toys and erasing their memories? It's really scary."
Betty took a deep breath and clicked his tongue.
"Where did you get this fruit?"
Lucas put Hobby-Hobby Fruit into Castle Space and asked casually.
"Have you forgotten, we also have a business to acquire Devil Fruit. This was provided by the person in charge of North Blue."
Stussy rolled his eyes at him angrily. He even forgot about his own property. This guy is really careless.
Lucas slapped his head, and then he remembered that it seemed that such a thing really happened. It was just that he hadn't received a new Devil Fruit for so long that he almost forgot about it.
Then, he thought of another question and asked:
"I remember that North Blue Underworld is currently ruled by a gangster family called Donquixote Family. How did the people below steal things from them?"
According to the current size of Federation, let alone the Donquixote Family of this period, even the heyday Donquixote Family who ruled Dressrosa for ten years in the original time and space were nothing more than a group of street gangsters.
Not counting Lucas himself, Federation currently has two point five Admiral level combat power.
One is the current Stussy, the other is Yixiao, and the remaining 0.5 is the Robin that is still one life-and-death grind away from being able to upgrade Haki to the top level.
At this point, Yamato and Hancock, who have outstanding initial qualifications, are a little worse than Robin.
Robin first stayed in Time Spirit Room for fifteen years, and then had Lineage Factor Optimization exclusively for three months. In addition, being one step ahead, combined with various factors, it is normal to be ahead.
However, these are all high-level forces.
Lucas has almost forgotten the industry of collecting Devil Fruit, so how can anyone pay attention to it?
He was very curious about how the person in charge at North Blue was able to seize the opportunity without his own intervention.
In his memory, Donquixote Family was involved in the Devil Fruit transaction very early on.
"This Devil Fruit was not taken from Devil Fruit Hunter. It came from the private sector."
Stussy seemed to have thought of something bad, with a look of disgust on his face.
"The person who provided this Devil Fruit is a bad gambler. He also mortgaged his two daughters."
For Devil Fruit transactions, there are usually three channels for receiving goods.
One is to acquire it from Devil Fruit Hunter, which is the most common.
One is to send people all over the world to search for it. The last one is to get it from ordinary people who are lucky enough to get Devil Fruit.
The third method requires a certain power base and is too small for ordinary people to know.
From North Blue, two daughters?
Hobby-Hobby Fruit?
It can't be such a coincidence, right?
Lucas was stunned, and a pair of sisters appeared in his mind.
Time goes back to a few days ago.
North Blue, Some Island.
In a dilapidated house on the edge of the only town on the island, the sea breeze poured in through the cracks in the window frame, causing the old almanac hanging on the wall to rattle.
A pair of sisters wearing old clothes were doing housework that seemed to be endless.
The sisters' exposed skin was dry, rough, lackluster, and covered with scars from being hit by heavy objects that had not yet healed. Their hair was sparse and yellow, and the ends of their hair bifurcated into countless small dead branches.
Gululu!
The younger one touched his belly and put down the rag in his hand. Tears filled his eyes.
"Sister, I'm hungry. How about we go out and find something to eat?"
The older one showed a bitter expression. Her lips were chapped and there was a scabbed cut at the corner of her mouth.
She touched her sister's hair tenderly, her fingertips pausing for a moment among the dry strands.
"Be good. Just be patient a little longer. That man can't see us when he comes back and is going to lose his temper again."
"But, I can't bear it anymore."
My sister looked aggrieved and lowered her head.
"Okay. I'll accompany you out."
Looking at her sister's appearance, she couldn't bear it. She gritted her teeth, stood up tremblingly, helped her up, and walked towards the door.
"Thank you sister!"
The younger sister clung to her elder sister's skinny arm. The corners of her mouth were slightly raised, revealing a row of missing front teeth.
Not long after the sisters left, an angry middle-aged man kicked open the closed door.
The door panel hit the wall and bounced twice. A hinge collapsed from the wooden frame and rolled several times on the ground.
He walked into the house and cursed:
"Damn it! I lost everything again! Next time, I will definitely win it back with profit!"
The man punched the table hard. The dust on the table was shaken up, and turned into a gray-white mist in the light that squeezed in through the cracks in the window.
Just as he was thinking about letting his two daughters cook for him as usual, he glanced around the room and suddenly found that they were gone.
"Sugar! Monet! Where did you two die!?"
The man stood up and left, opened the door, and went outside to look for his two daughters. His footsteps stepped on the bumpy dirt road in front of the door, raising strings of dry dust.
A forest near a small town.
The trees in this forest are not very tall, their branches are twisted, and their bark is covered with gray-green moss.
Monet and Sugar spent a lot of effort and finally took out a strange-looking fruit from the branches of a short tree.
The fruit hung at the very end of the branch, half-hidden by a few yellowing leaves.
Spiral patterns appear on the surface of the fruit, and the fruit stem looks like a toy clockwork.
The moment he saw it, Sugar felt an inexplicable throbbing in his heart. His fingers seemed to be pulled by some invisible thread, and he stretched out and picked up the fruit.
TO BE CONTINUED